GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 51 
English throne, still another continental influence was 
felt; and as whatever affected English taste affected 
it on both sides of the Atlantic, the mathematical pre¬ 
ciseness of this new school began to tell on the gardens 
that were being constructed here, at the beginning of 
the eighteenth century. Vegetable sculpturing or 
topiary work was a feature of Dutch gardening, like¬ 
wise the huge urns or vases set up in prominent parts 
of the garden; and open iron fences with very impos¬ 
ing gates began to take the place of impenetrable 
walls, in conformity to the growing desire to see 
abroad into the world. 
Thus we have curiously complex and mixed ante¬ 
cedents for the gardens which came into being around 
such places as Mt. Airy, the home of the Tayloe’s, 
built in 1650; Shirley, of the same year; Tuckahoe, 
1700 or 1710; Chatham, 1720, with its ten-acre lawn 
before the house; Stratford Hall, 1725 to 30; and 
“Belvadera” at Westover, the great home which Col. 
Byrd built in 1726. Here there was a walled garden 
of two acres, with boxwood borders and box trees, and 
Byrd himself loved it so well that here he was buried, 
his monument marking the center of the garden. 
Col. Randolph’s house at Tuckahoe impressed one 
traveler as so remarkable that he described it minutely 
in 1729. It was “built on a rising ground, having a 
most beautiful prospect of James River. On one side 
